The present invention relates to an identification system for articles in manual free access automatic vending apparatus for hotel rooms, wherein sensors detect the presence or absence of a stored article in a given location.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,791,411 describes an automatic vending system for articles for refrigerators of hotel rooms.
In such apparatus, the articles that are to be offered for sale are placed in reserved locations, each of which is surveyed or scanned by individual electric or electronic detectors in order to be able to determine at any given moment if an article is present or absent from its location, thus indicating the need to replace the sold articles and to bill for the same.
The advantage of this system is that a customer may remove an article and, after examination, may change his mind and replace the article in the vending apparatus without being improperly billed therefor, as is the case with other automatic vending apparatus on the market that are provided with means such that a customer can not replace an article once removed from the apparatus, thus forcing the customer to consume an article that he may no longer desire after examination thereof.
In such free access automatic apparatus, the articles are merely placed or deposited in locations adapted on a form, a position or to a determined graphic identification so that each article may be deposited or eventually freely replaced in a reserved location.
In such apparatus, the articles are disposed on interchangeable trays that group series of articles, intentionally of the perceptibly same vending price.
Thus, if a customer mistakenly replaces an article in another location of the same type, this will not require a difference in the billing.
However, this will not be the case for a tray that is reserved for large bottles, grouping, for example, locations for three bottles of mineral water and one location for a champagne bottle, each of which is perceptibly of the same volume and the same size.
However, the selling price of a bottle of water and a bottle of champagne are entirely different, and an unscrupulous customer could be tempted to intentionally remove a champagne bottle from its location and replace it by a bottle of water with the hope he will be wrongly billed in his favor.
In particular, the customer would be billed for a bottle of water instead of a champagne bottle because a reserved location for a water bottle will be empty and the location reserved for the champagne bottle will be occupied, in this case by a bottle of water that is perceptibly of the same size.
In addition, it is possible that a customer could unintentionally, by simple mistake, interchange a bottle of water for a bottle of champagne.
Thus, it is important to prevent a bottle of champagne from being billed even though it is still present in the vending apparatus, although in a water bottle location.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an identification system for articles in automatic vending apparatus wherein such a system reduces the possibility for incorrect billing.